The Dispatch

During a podcast on psychological research informing Edtech, the Head of the Psychology and Human Development Department at the UCL Institute of Education, Dr Zachary Walker, was asked to name some exciting developments.

He replied: “If I can be completely honest, it's just the fact that people are finally using technology in the classroom.”

Dr Walker devoted his PhD dissertation in 2012 to investigating the impact of interview practice using a mixed-reality environment and individualised coaching sessions on the interview performance of young adults with intellectual disabilities. “Some of the things that we saw with students with disabilities and their individual social skills were just off the charts good,” he said in the podcast.

He added: “Those things have been around for 20 years; we're just now starting to see them work their way into the classroom.”

The possibilities are undoubtedly exciting and they shine through research and practice.

Extended reality – an umbrella term encompassing augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality – has been documented in research for a wide range of applications.

For example, in a 2020 study, researchers used AR to provide students with real-time information about measurement data during a lab experiment. They found that compared to students in a non-AR condition, AR-supported lab work yielded learning gains in conceptual knowledge.

Dr Yota Dimitriadi, a Professor at the University of Reading whose interests encompass inclusion, diversity and equity, highlights the contributions of AR/VR and mixed reality technology during lockdown. “It opened up this window of opportunity to look at resources that were far away or may not be safe or accessible to view, and to create that dialogue among users,” she says.

Extended reality (XR) is also used in a range of work experience and training applications – including initial teacher education. The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership highlighted the use of XR at the University of Newcastle as a case study, finding that XR helps to bridge theory and practice by allowing pre-service teachers to practise classroom management strategies.

Dr Megan Smith, a Professor at the University of British Columbia, recounts a project she has on the go with her students recreating a wildfire that devastated the Okanagan region on VR.

“This has incredible learning applications for our fire crews,” she explains. “The beauty of these technologies is that they can be packed up into a case and taken into remote areas in the world,” she tells QS Insights Magazine.

However, the technology is still considered an emerging application for education and this has implications for adoption, with institutions having to ponder issues encompassing cost, logistics, access, and others – including research evidence.

Life cycles

Every new tech experiences five phases, according to the Gartner Hype Cycle of New Technology: technology trigger, peak of inflated expectation, trough of disillusionment, slope of enlightenment and plateau of productivity. In short, the launch creates a frenzy of sensational claims, followed by a loss of public interest before the tech quietly becomes part of everyday existence.

Another life cycle of tech in education is a somewhat more disillusioned model explained by Professor Steven Higgins and colleagues (2012) in a report for the Education Endowment Foundation on the impact of digital technology. At first, enthusiasm for the new tech is supported by anecdotal or qualitative accounts finding positive effects on student learning, the authors explain.

As the technology becomes more mainstream and more rigorously investigated, however, the studies tend to yield more mixed results. After this, the tech may become embedded in education settings but will rarely be scrutinised again, as studies tend to focus on new and emerging technologies – “so the question of overall impact remains elusive”, the report says.

Dr Betheny Gross, Research Director for WGU Labs, explains that she has seen this cycle play itself out in K-12 education. A lot of the early adopters, she explains, get the best resources and attention around implementation and fidelity. This happens in closed environments where implementation is carefully controlled. Things become more complicated when the technology is implemented more widely, as inevitably this will involve settings that don’t feature the same level of resources, training or time commitment.

“This is where you start to realise that these tools are really effective in certain designed environments, where a certain set of conditions are available and they can be either not helpful or even damaging in environments where those conditions are not supported,” she explains.

With AR and VR, she explains, we are still in the early stages: those tools are being used in selected spaces with a lot of attention on them.

Engagement and motivation, but too much information

Several papers, systematic reviews and meta-analyses have been published in the past 15 years (and more) on the impact of virtual, augmented and mixed reality in education.

On the positive side, studies have found these technologies to foster a range of positive outcomes,for example, motivation and engagement, problem-solving, critical thinking, memory and retention, digital literacy and critical thinking.

Specifically about VR, the technology has been found to foster engagement, motivation and interest, and boost opportunities in distance learning. A meta-analysis of 21 papers also found that it promoted students’ learning outcomes more than other traditional methods at K-6 levels.

For AR, a meta-analysis of 64 studies published between 2010 and 2018 found that it had a medium effect on students’ learning gains, with students at university or college benefitting the most.

Dr Walker and colleagues, in a 2017 paper, explain that one of the advantages of using AR applications and AR platforms is the ability to display content-relevant digital information to support students’ needs in real time and specific contexts. The authors say this is a particularly important feature to support learning for individuals with disabilities.

Conversely, research found these technologies have their drawbacks. Mental fatigue and visual exhaustion, difficulty in usage, multitasking and information overload, increased distraction and cognitive load for students are a few examples.

AR and VR can present too much information, leading to cluttered displays. Talking specifically about VR, the authors of a 2020 article argue that its immersive technology can contribute to the difficulty of using it effectively, citing studies which found the presence of extraneous input in the immersive learning environment can ultimately hinder learning.

“Carefully considering both cognitive demands placed on the learner and the learning outcomes is important when planning VR educational experiences. VR may not be the most suitable instructional medium, or it may be effective only when properly scaffolded,” they argue.

A recurrent topic in the literature is the importance of carefully designing activities and support for students when using these technologies to ensure that they can effectively support learning.

While some argue there should be specific AR/VR pedagogy, there may not be a need to completely reinvent the wheel: good pedagogical principles will most likely work in all realities, taking into account the context.

Dr Dimitriadi explains: “I agree that pedagogies can be reconsidered for the digital age – the way that we work with technology and the way that it shapes our activities and the way we are shaped by it is ongoing… but inclusive practice is good with and without technology.

“For example, avoiding cognitive overload is something that we need to think about with or without technology, or having adaptive teaching and making sure that we have resources and curricula that are accessible by all.”

And giving teachers time to train to use the technology, of course, is essential.

As unsurprising as it sounds, designing pedagogically sound activities and providing support for students is a concept that applies to all educational technology.

For example, microcredentials may work best in a context providing support and the possibility to practice.

“What I think is important,” Dr Dimitriadi says, “is how are these skills being revisited and reintroduced later on rather than as a one off?

“Because you can have all these accolades, you can create these badges and put them on social media, but if you want to go deep and support professional development and leadership, then I think we have to do two things: either revisit those microcredentials or give students scope and opportunity for them to talk about what they have learned. Authentic assessment can fit really nicely on that as well.”

There is more that research needs to probe. For Dr Dimitriadi, this includes questions about how technology can enable collaboration and how it can be made accessible and inclusive by design.

For Sasha Peterson, CEO at Science Interactive, a US-based company specialising in virtual labs, further areas for research include long-term retention, looking at how AR/VR simulations impact knowledge retention and application compared to traditional teaching methods in higher education.

Ethical considerations around data privacy, algorithmic biases, socio-economic disparities, cost-benefit analysis and effective integration of AR/VR into existing pedagogies are other areas where further research is needed, he says.

Experimenters and late adopters

Peer-reviewed research will lag behind the implementation of technology in education, say Dr Walker and Dr Don McMahon in a 2019 paper.

There are two approaches that educators can take: be bold and experiment with the technology, or be late adopters and benefit from a more solid evidence base - as Professor John Hattie and Dr Arran Hamilton argue.

Whatever approach we want to take, as experimenters or late adopters, the two most important elements remain the same: teachers and good pedagogy.

“At the end of the day, I feel that we need to look at the technology as a mediating tool,” says Dr Dimitriadi. “As a resource, not a replacement for good teaching, and consider how it makes the role of the teacher even stronger.”